A disturbing but inspiring memoir of a difficult childhood and adulthood.
In this debut memoir, Runyan describes how she was shaped by her hardscrabble upbringing.
The author was born in the early 1940s in the tiny home of poor tomato farmers in the Red River Valley of Texas. Her father frequently moved the family in his pursuit of better opportunities—from studying at a Bible college in Arkansas to driving a school bus in West Texas to working at a sawmill in Oregon—until his crippling depression made him unable to work. Runyan writes that her harsh, often violent mother did her best to keep the family fed, but there were many times when the kids went without food. The author writes that she was raped by her older sister’s husband when she was young, and not long afterward, at 16, she eloped with a boy from her school and tried to build an adult life—one far removed from poverty and instability. However, the boy she married turned out to be an unreliable husband, and having three kids of her own quickly taught her that life is never easy. Indeed, as she attempted to find lessons about how to be a woman in the world, she looked back on her mother’s behavior with greater understanding. Runyan’s prose is folksy but sharp, particularly when it’s filtered through her perspective as a young girl: “It turned out that Daddy had heard God call on him to preach the Gospel….Did he come right down from heaven, walk into the house, and call out to Daddy to come and listen to him? Maybe he sent an angel down to tell him.” The book’s tone is often cheery despite the subject matter’s bleakness, and several scenes contrast childhood play with grim reality, as when Runyan and her brother found a bullet at an Army base and left it on the kitchen stove—only to have it explode and injure their mother. The author also does an excellent job of documenting mid-20th-century American poverty in a way that feels simultaneously unusual and completely relatable.
A disturbing but inspiring memoir of a difficult childhood and adulthood.Pub Date: Dec. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72744-155-0
Page Count: 153
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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